Monthly Archives: January 2004

The Weekly Standard has the latest on Saddam’s payments to journalists and policitians around the world. Scott Ritter and Congressman Jim McDermott are among those who appear to be implicated. As to some, like MP George Galloway, the leader of the anti-war movement in Britain, there is no doubt whatsoever. A memo from the Iraqi Intelligence Service says: [Galloway's] projects and future plans for the benefit of [Iraq] need financial »

This noon representatives of the Northern Alliance got together with Commissioner Hugh Hewitt, Generalissimo Duane and Jay Larson of the Patriot for lunch. It was fun to meet some of the guys we hadn’t encountered before. The photo below shows Hugh, lower right; Duane, holding the HH bobblehead doll; King Banian of SCSU Scholars (above and between Hugh and Duane); Ed Morissey of Captain’s Quarters (in the back on the »

Yesterday, the Commerce Department released figures showing that the fourth quarter’s annual growth rate for gross domestic product (GDP) was 4 percent. The news outlets where I saw this reported made this news sound mosly bad. They noted that the projected growth rate had been 5 to 5.5 percent, and that the actual rate was down significantly from the figure of more than 8 percent in the third quarter. No »

Last August, before the soccer match between EVERTON and Liverpool, I posted this paeon to “derbies”, matches between local rivals. With Liverpool struggling at the time, and the match being played at Everton’s Goodison Park, I thought my team might pull off an upset. Instead, we were taken apart 3-0. Today, in the rematch at Liverpool’s Anfield ground, Everton managed a brave 0-0 draw. The Rocket Men of the world »

His first career was in the British Army. His distinguished army service included participation in the British army’s last cavalry charge. His second career was in journalism, a field in which he achieved overnight celebrity as a war correspondent. He wrote his first book in 1897 at age 24 and wrote 50 more. The books make out a literary career of incomparable breadth and distinction. They comprise works of fiction, »

Yesterday–and the day before–Cuban organized-crime boss Fidel Castro addressed a conference of “activists” in Havana. His “5 1/2-hour speech…began Thursday night and continued into early Friday.” Fidel, who has a rich fantasy life, claimed that the Bush administration is plotting to assassinate him. He yearns, I guess, for the days when some people thought he was important. He also tried to think of a difference between himself and Saddam Hussein, »

Ice storms, school closings, people can’t get to work–hey, that’s Deacon in Washington, D.C. Here in Minnesota, it’s really cold. Driving to work this morning, it was 24 degrees below zero. Last night, the Trunk and I, with our wives and my seventeen year old son, Eric, went to see Hugh Hewitt at a Patriot radio station event at the St. Paul Hotel. Once I got the car parked–no easy »

When I was a kid, there was a guy named Harold Stassen who ran in the Republican presidential primaries every four years. Although his candidacy had become a joke, it was always noted, and he always seemed to attract some votes, sort of like Kucinich this year. In 1964, I think he won a substantial number of votes in a midwest primary (Illinois or Indiana, if memory serves) in which »

A blog called “Neoultracentrist” responds to my comment about the liberal Democratic understanding of the nature and extent of the terrorist threat by arguing that this understanding is superior to President Bush’s. The blogger takes Bush to task because “he tells us that we have to go on living otherwise the terrorists have won, and then constantly points out that we’re in mortal danger.” But there’s a better model — »

One of our readers, after considering the things that mean the most to her family, has this to say about why conservatives should continue to support President Bush: “1) My husband is an officer in the US military. Every time he goes to base ops to fly, he stops in front of Bush’s picture and salutes and says ‘Thank you sir’. He had to serve 8 yrs under Clinton and »

…to make sure it’s imprisoning the same people it convicted is doomed. Catch this headline: “Rich Danish criminals pay stand-ins to serve sentences”: Lax security at Danish prisons is allowing criminals to hire impersonators to serve their sentences in their place. Wealthy felons have been exploiting Denmark’s relaxed criminal justice regime under which there can be a period of months between a conviction and the start of a sentence. During »

Dick Morris writes this morning that the Democratic nomination race is far from over: Only the liberal wing of the Democratic Party has reached a conclusion in its designation of Kerry as their finalist for the nomination. There is still a big opening for a moderate candidate such Edwards or Clark… Democrats held two primaries on Tuesday in New Hampshire. In the liberal contest, Kerry bested Dean by a sufficient »

Earlier this month we noted Theodore Dalrymple’s discussion of the German cannibal who killed and ate a man who had asked to be killed and eaten. We wrote about it under the heading “The case for cannibalism.” The defendant raised a variety of defenses based on the victim’s consent to serve as grist for the cannibal’s mill. Today’s Telegraph reports: “Cannibal not guilty of murder.” Dalrymple challenged readers to formulate »

The Democrats would like to run against President Bush as though Sept. 11 never happened. Last night, at the debate in South Carolina, John Kerry kicked off that effort by claiming that the Bush administration has exaggerated the terrorist threat. The Washington Times reports: »

Readers of a certain age may recall the stir created in the late 1970s by William Shawcross’ book Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon and the Destruction of Cambodia. When Sideshow appeared, I was no longer a leftist and not yet a conservative. Unassisted by ideology, it was difficult for me to figure out what to make of the book. On the one hand, it seemed rigorous on its face, and Showcross came »

The Chicago Tribune reported yesterday that American military officials are planning a spring offensive along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, with a view toward cleaning out the al Qaeda remnants hiding there and capturing or killing bin Laden. Apparently the reason why this has not been done already is that President Musharraf would allow only very limited incursions into Pakistan by special forces. Now that he has survived at least two assassination »